Wishing by Night
by ArieSemir
Summary: A short TyrBeka vignette, Tyr's PoV. Tyr doesn't waste time on mighthavebeens, but not even he can control his dreams.


Title: Wishing by Night

Disclaimer: I don't own Andromeda. Other people do. Whether or not they're treating it like crap... well, that I can't say for certain. Okay, I can, but I won't.  
  
A/N--I thought I had done Tyr/Beka to death. But inspiration whacks me over the head tonight, and plot bunnies gnawed my ankles ceaselessly. Blame **Mary Rose** for wanting Beka fic and _The Early Ayn Rand_, for being much less stiff and a rather warmer than her other stuff.

Summary: Tyr/Beka vignette, Tyr's PoV. Spoilers for part of a conversation in the S3 finale.

Finally... that was not Tyr. That was not Tyr. THAT was NOT TYR! Ahem...

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Beka Valentine was the only person who had ever caused Tyr to wish for the impossible.

After the destruction of his Pride and the betrayal by their allies, Tyr did not waste time and emotion cursing a merciless universe. He did not spend his nights hoping that things would be different when he woke up, hoping that the past years had been a dream. No, Tyr Anasazi forced his will upon the universe and watched it bend to the shape he preferred.

After more than a decade of humiliation, of one indignity suffered after another, of pandering to fools who smirked at their pet Nietzschean, the Andromeda presented herself to him. An opportunity, no matter what the outcome. He recognized that the crew changed him as much as he changed them, but Tyr Anasazi remained the same at his core. He did not wish for the impossible.

When he left abandoned his wife and the possibility of a child, he did not wonder what might have happened if his scenario had succeeded. He locked the double helix away and focused his attention on survival, power, and a bit of revenge if it fit with the rest of his plans. And because he didn't whittle away his energy dreaming about the might-have-beens, he managed all three. He had lasting influence in the NeHolland system, and the new Systems Commonwealth owed him several debts. The Lady Elsbett was suitably intrigued by him, and her husband the Arch-Duke would not forget the name Tyr Anasazi for a very long time. He had helped weaken both the Drago-Kazov Pride and the Knights of Genetic Purity.

All tallied, the universe had taken on a desirable shape. Except for her...

_i"I'll tell you a secret." Maybe she thought he was mocking her—they always wondered, he knew, whether the resident Nietzschean was serious or sniggering behind their backs. Her eyes held a trace of suspicion now, and anger, but they were weary, too. She was tired of this, he could see, tired their not-quite relationship, of his uncertainty and of her vulnerability to him. _

"_I've lived with you. I've fought beside you... fought with you." He didn't suppress a tiny grin at that last one. Yes, they had fought, and it had been glorious. "I've often wished you were a Nietzschean."/i _She would never know what it had cost him to say that.

But she wasn't, and nothing he could do could change that. Nor could he change the simple truth that he was another disappointment in a very long line of disappointments for Rebecca, that skinny spacer with addiction in her blood and eyes that sparkled like no gem he'd ever seen. He even wished, for a brief moment, that he was not the last of the Kodiak Pride with a personal sense of integrity drilled into him from birth which he could not ignore. Everyone who had ever known him would laugh at his professed integrity, but Tyr knew it was there. Knew because now he cursed it.

He could have stayed with her, if he was a middle-ranking Dragan or Jaguar with middle-ranking prospects. He could have stayed with her if he didn't carry within him the potential to save his people from the fools they'd become, smirking over their pet slaves and internecine wars.

He thought that he couldn't reasonably prevent such wishes from rising to his brain now and then, but he could stop himself from star-gazing, wondering where she was now and what they could be doing if not for his heritage. So he didn't imagine their life aboard the Andromeda, didn't contemplate his rebellion against Nietzschean social mores in declaring his love for her, didn't ponder the softness of her eyes and her lips.

But he couldn't control the machinations of his mind while he slept, when he remembered that he must. And then he was free to throw off the chains of destiny, of genetic reincarnations and salvation. He was free to spar with Beka and remark how she was improving and press her against him in a hold a bit longer than necessary. After they had sparred for a very long time and both were hot from exertion and adrenaline, her eyes glittered feverishly and she pulled his hair and kissed him roughly. In his dreams, it was always Beka who made the first move, for even his dream-self was too hampered by Nietzschean custom to try something so daring.

Sometimes they developed a relationship, and sometimes they ended up hating each other, but there was a constant thread of passion in his dreams. At night, he was free to explore the possibilities he regarded as a luxury too expensive by the light of day.

During the day, Tyr Anasazi was a model Kodiak and a model Nietzschean. Drago Museveni himself would have been proud. But at night he was a man, still in love after all that had come between them.


End file.
